(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a simulator, and more particularly, to a simulator with which one predicts and confirms various living environments mainly by visual perception and further by auditory perception when planning a house.
(2) Description of the Related Art
Today, requests for houses vary from individual to individual depending on a house one wants. On the other hand, housing equipment such as an air conditioner has rapidly advanced and the performance has been upgraded. In particular, a so-called housing-air-conditioner (an air conditioner furnished with a house as one unit) has spread widely. In this case, the housing equipment must be selected at the time of planning. Further, there has been an increasing need to fully consider lighting environments created by the location of a TV set and a desk beside windows, lighting equipment, etc.
On the other hand, people are highly amenity-oriented these days (amenity means comfort given by places, air-conditioning, visual perception, etc). For this reason, there has been a need for a housing plan that fully utilizes a limited space to quickly provide satisfactory living environments in which an internal space looks excellent and residents feel good and comfortable both mentally and physically.
These are important not only when building new houses but also when repairing houses.
Also, these issues have become important for places where a plurality of people work in or use such as shops, offices, etc.
However, it is expensive to employ a conventional experimental method using a miniature to plan optimal individual houses to satisfy various requests form users or owners, particularly in Europe, America, and Japan where laboring costs are high. Further, it is difficult, in practice, to respond quickly to their requests. Given these circumstances, a computer technology which has rapidly advanced in recent years has been adopted to perform an evaluation on 3-D (three-dimensional) living environments by producing virtual living environments. This enables a quick, inexpensive evaluation on the air-conditioning, lighting, sound, etc. This is so-called a computer simulation. Moreover, the simulator enables one to easily experience a simulation in a realistic way by producing a virtual space called a virtual reality using the simulation result. Thus, a massive amount of analysis data necessary at the time of planning can be collected efficiently. The simulation is considered to be used to a proposed-type sales technique; and users such as customers (residents-to-be) or a sales man experience a simulation of housing environments prior to construction. This is important, particularly, in a case where houses of a same standard, such as condominiums, ready-built houses, and office buildings, are mass-produced for sale. Conventionally, the simulation results are displayed on a CRT (cathode-ray-tube) or domed display in two-dimension, or displayed in three dimension through a stereoscopic parallax using a pair of stereoscopic glasses to evaluate the performance a house would exhibit when it is completed. In this case, the cost performances of the simulator is upgraded due to the advancement of hardware. For example, as is shown in FIG. 1, the simulator comprises a goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11, a computation control unit 13, and a 3-D input unit 12, and one can experience a realistic simulation to observe how the internal of a virtual, stereoscopic room produced in the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit changes by changing an angle or a location. Note that the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11 includes two compact image forming devices for each eye, and an image of a device or the like formed for both eyes is displayed in accordance with not only a distance (longer the distance, smaller the image, but also a certain parallax to each eye. Accordingly, a stereoscopic, perspective image as if seen through the real eyes in real environments can be produced. Also, a menu or the like can be displayed when it is necessary. Further, a so-called data glove, such as the one shown in FIG. 1, is generally used as the 3-D input unit 12 since both eyes are covered with the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11. The data glove 12 is a glove made of cloth embedded with a considerable amount of expandable/contractible wavy or spiral metal strips: when one moves his hand or fingers for a switching manipulation or similar movement, the content of the movement can be detected by the expansion or contraction of the above-mentioned metal strips. Commands entered into the simulator corresponding to the movements of the hand or fingers have been determined in advance, and thus, various commands can be entered by the movements of the hand or fingers, making a simulation within the virtual space possible. Further, equipped at the top of a monitor's head is a magnetism detecting point 15 for three directions: up-and-down, right-and-left, and front-and-read. The magnetism detecting pointer 15 detects the change of the strength in three directions in a magnetic field generated by a magnetic-field generating unit 14 to detect an inclination of the head to reflect the same in a view field within the virtual space produced in the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit. The magnetism is used herein because the detection by light is susceptible to interior illumination and the detection by sound is susceptible to outside noise.
A method as follows is adopted as a necessary means for stereoscopic display: the locations or geometry of devices, a house, walls, windows, etc. are defined by 3-D coordinates by giving an x-coordinate to the east-and-west direction, a y-coordinate to the north-and-south direction, and a z-coordinate to the up-and-down direction, and z-h to a height to the eyes to calculate the parallax or visible geometry or sizes. Numeral 1300 in FIG. 1 shows a conception of input geometry or the like.
If one changes his location with putting the simulator on, he can experience how the visual and auditory perception change to some extent. In this case, the change in location is detected based on the detection of a magnetic field generated by the magnetism generating unit 14 by the magnetism detecting pointer 15 which requires less number of detecting pointers and simple structure and is independent of sound and light.
According to the above construction, not only the devices installed in the room, but also thermal environments or lighting environments by illumination can be displayed stereoscopic as shown in FIGS. 2A, 2B. In FIG. 2A, numeral 22 shows air circulation produced by an air-conditioner 21 and numeral 23 shows contour lines of a temperature-distribution analytic index. In FIG. 2B, numeral 25 shows contour lines indicating an illuminance distribution produced by the illumination by a chandelier 24. FIG, 2C shows a monitor experiencing auditory environments by a stereo-headphone 26.
Rules and facts necessary for calculations of the aforementioned are as follows:
(1) A solid angle of a device in a view field is inversely proportional to a square of a distance from the eyes.
(2) The parallax of both eyes is inversely proportional to the distance.
(3) The luminous energy from a light source and volume from a sound source are inversely proportional to a square of the distance.
(4) The directivity, the contents of frequencies, etc. of light or sound from lighting devices or the sound source respectively, the change of a reflection factor depending on an incident angle at a reflecting surface, an absorption factor by the devices and an attenuation factor by air or glasses of light or sound, etc. will be fixed once conditions are given.
(5) Likewise, a specific heat and viscosity of air, an amount of radiation heat from a heat source, and heat properties of each device or the like will be fixed once conditions are given.
(6) Various analytic equations such as Euler's equation and successive equations.
Note that these are not the gist of the present invention, and described in the textbooks of mathematics, drawings and physics. An application where sound is also reflected on a 3-D visual display, or a program technique that displays a menu for program selection instead of an object such as a house are known arts and described "ARTIFICIAL REALITY" Myron Krueger, Addison-Wesley, Inc., etc. Also, various equations or analytic methods including an interpolation, a numerical differentiation and integration, a calculus of finite difference, a transition matrix method, and a finite element method are also well known arts. Thus, the explanation thereof is omitted.
However, to select a subject such as a building and room or environment elements to be evaluated from a menu with the conventional 3-D input unit 12 of the data glove, the data glove 12 must be moved to where it can hold the menu drawn within a 3-D space. Thus, one must move his arms while keeping his balance with putting the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11 on his eyes. In addition, one must remember rules to enter the commands by the movement of fingers, which are rarely adopted, Thus, the manipulation efficiency is considerably low. This is important for a designer unfamiliar with the simulator or a customer wishing to experience a simulation in sales engineering.
Also, to select furnishings in a room (stationary devices such as walls or windows), or equipment to be relocated (non-stationary devices such as the lighting devices, air-conditioner, and washing machine), the one must move one place to another within the virtual space. Hence, one must walk around with the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11 on. However, the magnetic field used to detect the location of the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11 covers a radius of 2 m at most. If one must move beyond 2 m, a method such that designates a walking-movement by a previously determined move command from the data glove 12 must be adopted. For example, one must move towards a direction that a displayed finger designates. If the number of subjects of the simulations is to be increased, it is necessary to increase the rules to be remembered, which does not provide an optimal man-to-machine interface. Also, since the data glove 12 is not used often, it becomes complicated and expensive.
To evaluate the simulation result of the living environments as planning data, observation methods in which a monitor moves to a location subject to evaluation within the virtual space, or physical amounts such as illuminance are displayed by contour lines on a cross-section of the virtual space must be employed.
However, it is not preferably to walk around with one's eyes covered with the goggle-type stereoscopic display unit 11 even within a room. Thus, the observation may result unsatisfactory because one pays attention to his walking-movement.
In particular, it is not impossible but difficult for a construction company or a sales company to let the end user, or namely residents-to-be or buyers-to-be, experience a satisfactory simulation of the environments of a house subject to construction or sale.
Also, it is difficult to observe sensible temperatures or winds associated with changes of one's location, which are indispensable in selecting or placing the air conditioner or the like. However, this is absolutely necessary not only for the general housing but also for shops.
Information of the wind, temperature, light, sound, etc. for either the entire room or a cross section can be collected; however, information at a specific location, which are indispensable when planning a comfortable living space, can not be collected easily.
Also, although it is often that a number of people exist in one room of individual houses or the shops, the simulation neither considers this situation nor mutual affects. Also, the planning data and experiences as to the behavior or mutual affects or effects of a number of people both under general circumstances and at emergency can not be collected. However, this is important for the housing, shops, etc.
In addition, the lighting affects on the house and devices installed therein are not displayed accurately; moreover, an intensity is not displayed effectively, thereby making it difficult to evaluate a sense of shade and shadow.
When one sees the outside form the inside and vice verse, only external or internal walls are visible. Thus, it is difficult to evaluate the individual house or interior of the entire room in relation with the external of the room or individual house. This is critical for a house with a garden or a restaurant with a garden the customers would appreciate.
Although affects by outside noise associated with the opening or closing of the windows are important in the cities, it is difficult to evaluate these affects intuitively.
If one is not familiar with the simulator, he may walk out of the room because of incorrect manipulations, and it is not easy to find his current location to walk back to the room.
In addition, although the designer can imagine the changes in various housing environments due to the changes of planning conditions, but has difficulty in understanding the changes intuitively. This is important for an inexperienced designer. Besides, it is inconvenient to collect intuitive planning data.
In the sales engineering, it is difficult to let the customers experience a simulation associated with the changes of the environment conditions such as internal luminosity produced by on and off of the lighting, opening and closing of the windows, etc. quickly and intuitively to satisfy their various requests.
Also, although evaluations on the location of mirrors, the color of the show window and illumination or the like are indispensable for the shops, it is difficult to experience the aforementioned quickly and intuitively.
For these reasons, there is an increasing need for a 3-D input unit and a goggle-type stereoscopic display unit that can realize the evaluation of the living environments with a satisfactory man-to-machine interface.